Sehetepkare Intef (also known as Intef IV or Intef V) was the twenty-third king of the

13th Dynasty In music or music theory, a thirteenth is the note thirteen scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the thirteenth. The interval can be also described as a compound sixth, spanning an octave p ...

during the

Second intermediate period The Second Intermediate Period marks a period when ancient Egypt fell into disarray for a second time, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. The concept of a "Second Intermediate Period" was coined in 1942 b ...

. Sehetepkare Intef reigned from

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

for a short period, certainly less than ten years, between 1759 BC and 1749 BC or c. 1710 BC.

Attestations

Sehetepkare Intef is attested in the

Turin canon The Turin King List, also known as the Turin Royal Canon, is an ancient Egyptian hieratic papyrus thought to date from the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II, now in the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) in Turin. The papyrus is the most extensive list av ...

, entry 7.22 (Ryholt) or 6.22 (

Alan Gardiner Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner, (29 March 1879 – 19 December 1963) was an English Egyptologist, linguist, philologist, and independent scholar. He is regarded as one of the premier Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century. Personal life G ...

Jürgen von Beckerath Jürgen von Beckerath (19 February 1920, Hanover – 26 June 2016, Schlehdorf) was a German Egyptologist. He was a prolific writer who published countless articles in journals such as '' Orientalia'', ''Göttinger Miszellen'' (GM), '' Journal of ...

). The Turin canon places Sehetepkare Intef between

Imyremeshaw Smenkhkare Imyremeshaw was an Egyptian pharaoh of the mid 13th Dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period. Imyremeshaw reigned from Memphis, starting in 1759 BC or 1711 BC.Thomas Schneider following Detlef Franke: ''Lexikon der Pharaonen'', A ...

and Seth Meribre. Intef is also attested on the Karnak king list. Beyond these documents, Sehetepkare Intef is attested by the lower half of a seated statue from the temple complex of goddess

Renenutet Renenūtet (also transliterated Ernūtet, Renen-wetet, Renenet) was a goddess of nourishment and the harvest in the ancient Egyptian religion. The importance of the harvest caused people to make many offerings to Renenutet during harvest time. In ...

at Medinet Madi in the

Faiyum Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop, ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyum ...

., pls. IX-X The statue, JE 67834, is now in the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

Chronological position and reign length

The exact chronological position of Sehetepkare Intef in the 13th Dynasty is not known for certain owing to uncertainties affecting earlier kings of the dynasty. Darrell Baker places him as the twenty-third king of the dynasty,

Kim Ryholt Kim Steven Bardrum Ryholt (born 19 June 1970) is a professor of Egyptology at the University of Copenhagen and a specialist on Egyptian history and literature. He is director of the research centeCanon and Identity Formation in the Earliest Litera ...

as the twenty-fourth and

as the nineteenth. Furthermore, Ryholt believes Sehetepkare Intef was the fifth ruler bearing that name, making him Intef V, while Aidan Dodson, von Beckerath and Darrell Baker posit that he was Intef IV.Dodson, Aidan and Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. 2004.Darrell D. Baker: ''The Encyclopedia of the Pharaohs: Volume I - Predynastic to the Twentieth Dynasty 3300–1069 BC'', Stacey International, , 2008 The length of his reign is lost in a

lacuna Lacuna (plural lacunas or lacunae) may refer to: Related to the meaning "gap" * Lacuna (manuscripts), a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or musical work ** Great Lacuna, a lacuna of eight leaves where there was heroic Old Norse p ...

of the papyrus and cannot be recovered, except for the end of the inscription which reads ''"... nd3 days"''. Kim Ryholt gives ten years for the combined reigns of Imyremeshaw, Sehetepkare Intef and Seth Meribre. Another piece of evidence concerning the reign of Intef is found in the 13th Dynasty

Papyrus Boulaq 18 The Papyrus Boulaq 18 is an ancient Egyptian administrative document. It contains an account of the Theban palace dating to the 13th Dynasty (around 1750 BC). The papyrus lists the palace officials and the rations they received day by day. Importa ...

which reports, among other things, the composition of a royal family comprising ten king's sisters, an unspecified number of king's brothers, three daughters of the king, a son named Redienef and a queen named Aya. Even though the king's name is lost in a lacuna, Ryholt's analysis of the papyrus only leaves Imyremeshaw and Sehetepkare Intef as possibilities. This is significant because the papyrus reports a year 3 and a year 5 dates for this king. Additionally, a date "regnal year 5, 3rd month of Shemu, 18th day" is known from the unfinished pyramid complex neighboring that of Khendjer, which may thus have been built by the same ruler, a close successor of Khendjer, perhaps Intef. The exact circumstances of the end of Intef's reign are unknown but the fact that his successor Seth Meribre did not use '' filiative nomina'' points to a non-royal birth. Consequently, Ryholt proposes that Seth Meribre usurped the throne.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Intef 04 18th-century BC Pharaohs Pharaohs of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt